The 76-minute HBO feature, shot on a mix of video and film, follows photographer Tunick as he travels to all seven continents - including Antarctica - to shoot a collection entitled Nude Adrift. In each city, including London, Dublin, St. Petersburg, Paris, Tokyo, Melbourne, and Sao Paulo, Tunick and his team coordinate the complex logistics of finding volunteers for group and individual shoots. Sometimes they work with local governments, but as often are forced to shoot on the sly, risking arrest. These guerilla sessions are often amusing: rushed by security and barking dogs in front of The Louvre, Tunick is heard exclaiming, in English, "It's okay - [I'm an] artist!"

Besides Tunick, his handlers and coordinators are interviewed at length, as are various volunteer models from the different countries and cultures, as well as varied dissenters ("I think it's a load of shit," says one), who dismiss Tunick as an insincere provocateur simply trying to get rich and become famous.

Tunick says repeatedly that he's merely trying to use human nakedness, incorporating as many as 4,000 people at once, as a new way to create abstract landscapes. And indeed, his seas of pink bodies at times resemble rolling water, a flock of birds or, as choreographed along a river bank, present a new and unexpected type of landscape. The contrast of the harsh urban geography of asphalt and steel against the soft human flesh is nothing if not visually arresting.

For his part, Tunick argues emphatically that his work is not sexual. This amuses one Russian who astutely theorizes that Tunick's insistence is perhaps driven by a prevailing American attitude that something can't be both sexual and art at the same time - that Tunick has to insist that his work isn't sexual so that it will be taken seriously. The film begs questions to Tunick which unfortunately go unasked about his own sexuality and feelings/attitudes about his body.

Conversely, Parisians note that while nudity in art is all well and good, the French themselves prove surprising prudish when it comes to their own bodies. Similarly, Tokyoites may bathe openly together but risk losing their jobs if they pose nude, even for an artist as recognized as Tunick. In Sao Paulo's male chauvinist society it's perfectly okay for men to show off their bodies in public but are extremely uptight about allowing their girlfriends and wives to pose.

The non-professional models find the experience liberating, and some of their stories are quite touching. The film's director, Arlene Donnelly Nelson, herself gets into the act near the end.

Video & Audio

Naked World is presented in its original full-frame format, with the image up to 2003 cable television standards, while the 2.0 stereo (also available in Spanish) is very strong. Scattered shots are obviously converted from PAL, but these are few in number.

Extra Features

Supplements include an Audio Commentary with Tunick and the director, which will be especially valuable for artists and admirers wanting to learn more about the project. A New York Installation Video is seven minutes of raw video (apparently shot in PAL format) from a 2003 shoot at Grand Central Station. The lack of narration and text limits its value. A Gallery of Images includes several photographs not seen in the feature.

Parting Thoughts

Naked World does what documentaries about artists generally should do: tear down the artist mystique and get inside his head to better understand the work being attempted. Even better though is the film's intriguing examination of different cultures' attitudes about art and nudity.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf - The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune and Taschen's forthcoming Cinema Nippon. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.